


Intercept

by Hours_Gone_By



Series: AU Yeah AUgust 2020 [3]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers Generation One, Transformers – All Media Types
Genre: AU Yeah August 2020, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe from just after the beginning of TF:TM, Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe – Time Travel, Community: trope_bingo, Gen, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Prowl Lives (Transformers), Time Travel, Trope Bingo Round 15, doppelgangers, post season two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By
Summary: The shuttle never leaves Moonbase One for Autobot City, the Decepticons never get close, Optimus Prime never falls, and Cybertron's future history turns out very differently.
Relationships: Jazz/Prowl
Series: AU Yeah AUgust 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860307
Comments: 23
Kudos: 61
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Fifteen





	Intercept

**Author's Note:**

> AU Yeah AUgust 2020 Day 3 – Time Travel  
> Trope Bingo Round 15: Prompt: Secret Twin/Doppelgänger

Prowl studied his plans for retaking Cybertron as he walked through Moonbase One on his way to board the shuttle that would take him back to Earth on an energon run. He had said goodbye to Jazz over comms just before he'd left their temporary quarters and only regretted not being able to kiss him again as he'd been on duty. This wouldn't be the most prolonged separation they'd experienced, but Prowl would still miss his lover. Nevertheless, if everything went according to plan, Prowl would soon have as much time to spend with Jazz as he wanted and could kiss him to his spark's content every cycle.

"Prowl!"

Frowning, because Jazz should still be on shift in the communications hub and not down here, Prowl turned to face his lover and stopped. The mech in front of him… _was_ Jazz, and it was not Jazz. Prowl knew Jazz, right down to the core of his spark, and Prowl knew that this both was and was not his lover. His Jazz didn't have that desperate edge to his voice, couldn't have gotten so dingy or worn-looking in just a few kliks.

"Jazz, what are you doing here?" Prowl asked as Jazz jogged up to him. "I have to board – "

"Prowl," Jazz interrupted, grabbing him by his shoulders. "Prowl, no. You don't."

"I do, Jazz. Prime's orders – "

"Prime's missing some important info, or he wouldn't have given those orders." Jazz pulled Prowl close, staring intently into his face. "Prowl. If you ever loved me, do not get on that shuttle!"

Frowning deeply, Prowl subspaced his datapad and put his hand on Jazz's shoulder. It must be the unusual distress that made him seem not-Jazz. "Jazz. You know I love you. Whatever it is, we'll talk about it." Jazz would not be this upset without reason. "But the shuttle…"

"Is gonna be attacked by Decepticons. You gotta believe me, Prowl."

"I believe you. I believe you," Prowl repeated. Decepticon attacks were nothing unusual. They _never_ made Jazz react like this. "Come on, let's go see Prime." Why Jazz wasn't _with_ Prime right now, Prowl wasn't sure, but getting his lover calmed down seemed a lot more important right now.

"Prowl, baby, you can have anything you want from me," Jazz agreed, his relief palpable, "just so long as you don't get on that shuttle."

"I won't," Prowl promised. He opened a comm channel. ' _Prime? Jazz and I are on our way back to the command hub._ '

There was a brief, uncertain pause. ' _Back? I don't understand. Jazz is still in the communications hub. I just asked him to contact Earth and let Ultra Magnus know your shuttle is inbound._ '

Prowl stared in disbelief at the mech in front of him, this Jazz who was-and-was-not Jazz. Not-Jazz must have realized what had happened because he looked sheepish.

"Uh, yeah," not-Jazz said sheepishly. "Guess I got a few things to explain…"

"Yes," Prowl said faintly, still staring, "you do."

* * *

Prowl hadn't crashed, but it was a near thing, not helped by seeing _two_ Jazzes when he got back to the command hub. Prime pulled Prowl, the Jazz who had been on duty, and the Jazz-who-wasn't into the nearest meeting room and demanded to know what was going on. Prowl took refuge near his Jazz and surreptitiously linked their smallest fingers together. His Jazz was watching his doppelgänger suspiciously. The other Jazz varied between staring at Optimus and staring at Prowl like he hadn’t seen them in decades.

"I think," Optimus began, watching other-Jazz closely, "you owe us an explanation."

"Yeah, I do," the second Jazz said and sighed. "Okay. Wheeljack'll confirm this for you if you bring him here or get me to Earth, something 'bout tachyons, but that'll take a while so, here goes.

"I got sent back here from the future, bout a vorn from now. This is the point where it all seems to have gone wrong. That shuttle mission you were sending Prowl on, to bring back enough energon for a full-scale assault? Yeah." Jazz looked over at Prowl, expression haunted. "Didn't go so well. Went real, real bad, in fact. Megatron and a bunch of Decepticons attacked. Killed the whole crew, used the shuttle to get past Autobot City's defences and attack. Hot Rod caught 'em coming in and sounded the alarm, but it wasn't soon enough. The attack went on all night, and nearly broke the city's defences. Blaster got a signal out, and you came, Prime, but – " Jazz wrapped his arms around himself, and even with his own Jazz standing at his side, Prowl nearly went to him. "It was a last stand. You drove off the Decepticons, but – the wounds were too much. You died, Optimus."

Optimus's optics were wide, shocked, but Prowl was unsurprised by his next question. "And Megatron?"

"Ooh…" Jazz gave a bitter laugh. "Megatron. Well, I don't know if you'd call it 'dead,' but he sure wasn't Megs after that. Real literal-like, too. Brings me to the next part of this: Unicron."

"Unicron?" Optimus echoed.

"Yeah, Unicron. Didn't find this out till a whole lot later, but Starscream had the damaged Decepticons tossed out of Astrotrain, including Megatron, into space as part of a coup. Unicron intercepted them, rebuilt them, made himself their master. Megatron got rebuilt as Galvatron. Came for the Matrix – got it off Magnus, too and tried to use it against Unicron. Didn't work, and Unicron came for Cybertron."

"Came for?" Prowl asked. "Were we able to drive off his forces?"

Jazz laughed bitterly again. "Forces? Prowler, he _was_ the force. Mech's alt mode is a fucking _planet_. He tore chunks out of Cybertron's surface, killed dozens of mecha with a swipe of one hand… The Matrix defeated him in the end, but it was a pretty near thing. Shockwave went down in the assault, Elita's squad, Elita…" Optimus flinched. Jazz looked away. "Yeah. We reclaimed Cybertron after, and the Cons were broken, hiding out on some little piece of nowhere called Charr, but – the peace didn't last."

"The Decepticons returned," Optimus concluded, but Jazz shook his head.

"Nah. The Cons were still around, still made the occasional raid, but they didn't have the energon or the infrastructure to mount any kind of assault. Galvatron couldn't have coordinated anything anyway – something went really wrong for that mech. Megatron made me question his sanity a whole bunch of times, but Galvatron was way, way worse. Something went damn wrong with that mech's neural net. We think he took heavy processor damage after Unicron was defeated, not quite sure when or how. Anyone who knew didn't like to talk about it much. So, you'd think that'd be a good place to stop, right?" Jazz continued. "So did we. We were wrong. Oh, mech, were we _wrong_."

"What happened, Jazz?" Optimus asked gently.

"The Quintessons happened. And yeah, I'll tell you _all_ about them but right now," Jazz unwrapped his arms and knocked on the table for emphasis, "right now, we've got to send a warning to a planet called Lithone. Then, we have to intercept Megatron before he gets to Autobot City. Then, we've _got to destroy Unicron_. I brought all the intel with me. Trick's gonna be getting the Matrix to a spot where it can take him out." His expression sharpened, narrowed in on Optimus. "Don't want to hear anything about finding another way, or reasoning with him, or any of that scrap. It's not going to happen, he's not going to stop, he wants to eat Cybertron, and he wants the Matrix destroyed."

"Do you know where Unicron and Megatron are located right now?" Prowl asked, focusing on practicality and strategy. "What their plans are, in detail?"

"Yeah, of course." Jazz managed a tiny not-quite-smile. "I might've been running from the Quints for a vorn, but I'm still me, Prowler."

Prowl would have said something, but this time's Jazz, next to him, spoke up first. "Yeah, and I'm still me. You know how this is gonna go."

"Yeah. No worries. I'm not gonna give Ironhide or Ratchet any trouble." Jazz smiled again, wistfully. "Be good to see them, too. Real good."

When the Jazz who claimed to be from the future – Jazz-Alpha, Prowl decided to think of him – left and, yes, was escorted away by Ironhide to be examined by Ratchet. The door slid shut, and Prowl and Jazz looked at each other, silently exchanging questions: 'are you alright?' 'not sure, you?' 'the same.'

"What do you two think?" Optimus wanted to know.

"If he's a duplicate or a clone of some kind, he's a damn good one," Jazz said slowly. "But I dunno. It's a hell of a story to tell if he's a plant. Plus, it ain't like we haven't seen time travel before, and Powerglide, Hoist, and Spike got transported to that other dimension with those Cons. So I'm not dismissing anything – but I'm not accepting it yet either."

"No," Prime agreed. "But I can't dismiss it either, especially given the threat posed to Cybertron. Prowl, what do you think?"

"He is Jazz," Prowl said firmly, looking between his Prime and his lover and taking Jazz's hand in his. "I know Jazz, down to the spark, and he _is_ Jazz. At the same time, he is also _not_ Jazz. I will still wait for the results of Ratchet's exam, but I believe we should, for now, cancel the mission to Earth. If Megatron's goal is the destruction of Autobot City and he does plan to access it by taking our shuttle, we can easily thwart it by having the energon brought here, instead of sending for it. It would allow us to bring in more troops for our assault on Decepticon Headquarters as well."

"Makes sense to me," Jazz put in. "Plus, we'd only be burning shuttle fuel coming one way, least for a while. We're gonna need all the energon we can get to take Cybertron back. Once he's done with Ratchet, I'll go get more details out of myself." In response to the look on Prowl's face, Prowl was sure, he added, "what? Would I lie to me?"

"Just don't be too hard on yourself," Prowl replied drily. They would talk about this more – but later. It wasn't a discussion to have in front of Prime, and it wasn't a discussion that couldn't wait until they had the data they needed. Prowl and Jazz were both long familiar with the need to push the personal aside for necessities of war.

Jazz grinned, but Prowl knew the cracks of uncertainty that had to be present under the cocky mask. "Who, me?"

"I'll alert Ultra Magnus," Optimus said, "and have him dispatch a squad and sufficient energon to power a full-scale assault. We won't let what happened in the other Jazz's timeline happen here."

Prowl was looking at Prime, but he could feel Jazz's gaze come to rest on him.

"Nah," Jazz said softly. "We won't. No matter what."

Prowl met his lover's visor and nodded once. No, they wouldn't. Especially not with the three of them working together.

* * *

Jazz would admit, readily, that Prowl had been the mech he most wanted to keep alive, even above Optimus. (Hey, Rodimus had done alright in the end, y'know?) But he'd done it to get back everyone, and Cybertron, and Earth, and the dozen other planets the Quint's hunt of Cybertronians had taken out or damaged. That included Ironhide, and Ratchet, neither of whom Jazz had told about their fates. (Would-be fates? Once-fates? Never-fates if Jazz had anything to say about it, and he did.) Ratchet's reaction to Jazz's story had been, blessedly, wonderfully, predictable, and Jazz couldn't stop himself from smiling.

" – better not be a trick, or I'll reformat you into a toaster oven!" Ratchet finished, and Jazz was still smiling.

"Yeah, Ratch, I know you will. Where d'you want me?"

"On the exam table," Ratchet told him. Jazz sat down and felt the slight prickling of a basic medical scan run over him. It lasted a little longer than he'd been used to, and Ratchet was unusually silent while he read the results. "…well. Your components and the changes in your spark signature do correspond with your story. You're older than the Jazz I examined just a few cycles ago, but – Lie back so I can do a more thorough exam."

"Sure thing, doc."

Jazz hadn't had a proper medical check-up in decades, not since he'd lost contact with Hoist and then First Aid. By the time he'd caught up with Perceptor and the tattered, ageing, remains of the EDC science team, there hadn't been time for Percy to give him so much as a look-over. There hadn't even been time for a briefing, not that Jazz had needed to be told what to do before he'd run through the time portal. He'd been focused on getting back to Prowl, but he'd still heard the sounds of a battle breaking out behind him. Maybe he should have turned back, but if he'd done that, he'd lose their chance to stop it all from happening to begin with. So he'd kept going, no matter what he'd heard behind him, no matter what he _knew_ had to be happening.

"It's a little hard to do this when you're tense like this," Ratchet noted. "I need you to try and relax for me. I can give you something if it's difficult for you."

Man, that sounded nice, Jazz thought wistfully. Finally being able to relax, even with help. But… "Can't, Ratch, got too much to do after this. I'll try to relax on my own." Jazz didn’t know how well he succeeded, but Ratchet didn't say anything more about it.

"Well," Ratchet said finally, "your self-repair has been working overtime for far too long, there's wear on all your joints, and you've clearly been running on bad or low rations for longer than is healthy. I'm going to give you a nanite booster and then I'd like to flush your systems and replace – "

"Can't, doc," Jazz interrupted. "I'll take the nanite booster, but I don't have time for the rest."

"Jazz – "

Jazz sat up and put his hand on Ratchet's arm. "Ratchet. I've got some stuff I've got to do, and then I promise I'll come back here, and you can take me apart and put me back together with all new parts if that's what you want. Right now, though, I can't."

Ratchet hesitated, then nodded, relenting. "Alright. Just the nanite booster." He had it ready, injected it. "I'll report to Prime that your spark signature says you're Jazz and the medical exam supports you being from the future. I'll send the tachyon signatures I picked up to Wheeljack, see what he has to say about it. But for now, I suppose Ironhide can take you back."

Jazz hopped down off the table. "Thanks, doc. And Ratchet?" His voice softened. "It's good to see you again."

Based on the medic's expression, the implications of Jazz's age and that 'again' weren't lost on him. He didn't ask _why_ it had been a long time since Jazz had seen him, and Jazz didn't elaborate. With luck, the timeline had changed, and it wouldn't matter to anyone but him.

"Whatever you came back here to do, Jazz," Ratchet said, sounding concerned, "I hope you manage it."

"Yeah," Jazz said with a nod. "Me too."

* * *

Prowl, present-day Jazz, and Optimus Prime had swiftly converted the room where they'd met with future-Jazz into a war room. Optimus wanted to keep future-Jazz's presence as low-key as possible until they decided how to present him to the rest of the Autobots.

"It'll probably be a lot easier on people to hear I came back to keep them from dying if we've already stopped the attack that killed them," present-day Jazz had put it. "We can deal with the Unicron problem after we take care of Megatron."

Prowl and Optimus had agreed with that, though that did leave out precisely what they were going to do with the other Jazz once they'd prevented what he'd come to. The other Jazz, whom Prowl dubbed Jazz-Alpha for the sake of simplicity, might not remain once his timeline no longer existed. Then again, he might not. Prowl was not an expert on time-travel and was honestly more concerned with keeping Autobots alive right now than with temporal mechanics. 

"Ultra Magnus is sending energon and troops, as requested. They will arrive here from Earth in the early morning, using a different route than the decoy shuttle we launched on automatic pilot," Optimus was saying. "If it's breached, it will initiate self-destruct – and take Megatron's ship with it, if we're lucky."

"Exactly," Prowl agreed. "While they're distracted with that, we can focus our assault on the Decepticon command centre. I'll coordinate an assault on Shockwave's drone's barracks with Elita-One, and we'll catch them in a pincer movement. I'll also want a contingent to remain on ready-status on Moonbase-Two. Megatron may change his mind about hitting Autobot City if he realizes the shuttle is a decoy before triggering the self-destruct. If he doesn't, Ultra Magnus and the EDC are already preparing to engage them at Earth."

Optimus nodded. "Excellent. Now that that's out of the way, I wanted to talk to you two about a personal matter."

"You mean my double, right?" Jazz asked, folding his arms. "Want to know if it's going to be a problem?"

"Is it?" Optimus's tone was careful, neutral.

"Nope. It's weird, not gonna lie, but I can handle it. Besides, he'll come in handy."

"Yes," Prowl added, understanding where his partner was going with this. "He may have more details on the nature of Megatron's troop movements and forces. Those could be useful, even if his presence has now changed the timeline."

"Just what I was thinking, and we're going to need them. So," Jazz's grin flashed briefly, "let's have Ironhide bring him back so I can talk to myself."

* * *

Ironhide brought Jazz back to the war room and then stood at the back of the room, arms folded, watching and waiting. Jazz didn't mind: he'd missed Ironhide too, after all. It was comforting to have him nearby: in the original timeline, he'd have been on the shuttle, same as Prowl, Ratchet, and Brawn. Megatron would be closing in on them, and they wouldn't even know. Him being here, instead, looked like proof that the timeline might be changeable after all.

Looking at himself across the table was still kinda weird, though. Past-Jazz was still getting regular maintenance and fuel, and the difference showed. The closest Jazz had come to getting so much as regular showers since Cybertron fell was that time they spent a deca-cycle running from Sharkticons on that planet where it rained all the time. ( _All. The. Time._ Jazz swore he still had rust from that place.) Past-Jazz also got to stand next to Prowl and that – that was weird too. Jazz had missed Prowl, dear _Primus_ had he missed him, but he'd had time, worked his way through the grief, come to accept that his lover was gone. When Perceptor had proposed using time travel to go back and try to set things right, Jazz had known he'd see Prowl again. It just hadn't felt real until he'd seen Prowl in the hallway, walking and reading a datapad with no idea he was going to his death. Maybe Jazz should have infiltrated more smoothly, but he'd seen Prowl, and it had just felt like there wasn't time. It had worked, though – at least to keep Prowl from dying on the shuttle.

 _The temporal constancy of the universe has been a matter of continuous debate for some time_ , Perceptor had said. _We may discover that although steps have been taken to prevent certain events, those events will still occur in a different fashion or as a result of different stimuli._ Jazz had understood that to mean, 'you can try to fix it, but it might still happen just differently.' It was worth the risk, though, and not just to keep the shuttle crew from dying.

"You weirded out by this too?" past-Jazz asked.

Jazz nodded. "Yeah. We can get to that later, though. Here." He tossed a memory stick to himself. "Brought everything we had and could put together on Decepticon movements on Cybertron and Earth during the attack on Autobot City. Data on Unicron's there, too, but if we stop Megatron – "

" – we keep Prime alive, prevent Megatron becoming Galvatron and maybe slow down Unicron a bit," past-Jazz finished. "Then, we worry about the Quintessons."

"They'll be less of a problem if we can stop Unicron," Jazz agreed.

"We have alerted Ultra Magnus on Earth, and he'll be on guard for a Decepticon incursion," Prowl said. "Reinforcements are en route, and Elita's squad is standing by."

"Plus, a whole bunch of other stuff you're not telling me about, right?" He didn't wait for an answer. "I get it, don't worry." He'd always dealt with 'need-to-know' stuff, and moving to guerilla tactics fighting the Quints had only meant more compartmentalization. "Memory stick's clean, but I'll wait for you to check it."

Past-Jazz already had the memory stick in an air-gapped decryption device and was waiting for the security sequence to finish running. He glanced up at himself.

"This is Red's work?"

"Mostly, yeah. I built off it after the Battle of Autobot City. We lost Red, too," he finished quietly. Inferno hadn't died with Red, but he hadn't lasted much after that, charging into battle more recklessly than Jazz had seen him do before. He'd died a hero, but he'd still died.

"You came back to stop that," Prowl said firmly, and it was startling to have his thoughts picked up on like that again.

"Perceptor warned it might still happen, just in a different way," Jazz said. "But, thanks, Prowle – Prowl."

"I – " Prowl glanced over at past-Jazz at that little slip. Past-Jazz nodded once. "We'll have to discuss boundaries and expectations between us, but that can come later."

"Stick's clean," past-Jazz announced and moved it from the device to a terminal, which would still be isolated from the main systems. "Let's take a look."

Everyone focused on strategy and Decepticon troop movements and ignored the tension Jazz's slip had brought to the room. Jazz couldn't stop being aware of Prowl, though, standing just a table's width and a vorn's length away from him.

* * *

The intel Jazz-Alpha had provided turned out to be just as valuable as Prowl had hoped for. While Megatron pursued the decoy shuttle, the Autobots on the Moonbases, teamed with Elita's squad, were able to overrun Decepticon headquarters.

Jazz-Alpha had wanted to fight, Prowl knew that, but it couldn't be allowed. Until the threat of Unicron and the Quintessons was eradicated, he was too valuable as a source of knowledge. They turned out not to need him, however, since Megatron's overconfidence proved to be his weakness. He had left his headquarters under Shockwave's guard, which had worked when Cybertron was mostly empty, and Elita's personnel had been continuously scavenging for energon to stay above subsistence level. But the Earth-based Autobots had been able to supply Elita's team with a respectable amount of energon before the Decepticons closed off the planet. As Chromia had put it, they'd been saving it for an occasion just like this one. Jazz-Alpha's information on Shockwave's drones had been reconstructed after the fact, but it had been accurate enough. With the drones gone, Shockwave in custody, and the bulk of the Decepticon forces chasing a decoy, the Autobots had been able to retake the planet. There had been little time to rejoice, of course, because Megatron had turned around once he realized the trap.

Prowl had requested, yet again, to use a sniper to take out Megatron. Moonracer, specifically, since Bluestreak was still on Earth. Prime had refused, again, and Prowl was not surprised. Trying to explain the risk of Unicron to him – _without_ letting him know about the Galvatron upgrade – had been futile. Megatron had taken the ship he'd used to intercept the decoy shuttle and retreated into space. Prowl sent Cosmos to track and trail them, maintaining a safe distance. With luck, he would follow them to some outpost, such as Chaar, or one of their old bases on Earth and not out deeper into space where they might be intercepted by Unicron. The threat of Galvatron was still present, according to Jazz-Alpha, unless Megatron were dead and smelted. Cybertron was once again in Autobot hands, and the Decepticons had been routed. They were not safe, and the war was not over, but for a moment, they had some respite. Prowl allowed himself to be as relieved as possible, considering the circumstances. After all, he still had information to glean, battles to plan, and some most unexpected personal issues to sort out.

Primus, this was going to be strange.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One was originally written for AU Yeah AUgust 2019 Day 28 (then, 29, then 30, then…) and I'm using it for Day 3 of AU Yeah AUgust 2020 as a shortcut. 
> 
> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:  
> 
> 
>   * Short comments
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>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
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> Author Responses: This author replies to comments. If you don't want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with "whisper," and I will appreciate it but not respond.


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